ZKEA

Biological Warfare : Biological Terrorism : Emerging Diseases

Archived News
Week ending January 8th, 2006

A 14-year-old farm boy who died after developing pneumonia-like symptoms had tested positive for bird flu, Turkey's health minister said Wednesday.

If the test is confirmed by the World Health Organization, it would be the first bird flu-related death outside Asia.

Three other members of his family also tested positive and are hospitalized, Health Minister Recep Akdag said.

Akdag's statement contradicted a ministry statement earlier this week, which said the boy's death was not caused by bird flu.

The tests have not been confirmed but a senior World Health Organization official said the boy probably had died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, Reuters news agency reported.

The 14-year-old boy, Mehmet Ali Kocyigit, died on Sunday.

He was among two brothers and two sisters between 6 and 15 years old who were admitted to hospital in the country's southeastern Van province last Saturday after developing high fevers, coughing, and bleeding in their throats. The children helped to raise poultry on a farm and were in close contact with sick birds. They became sick after reportedly eating one of them.

Two other patients, aged 35 and 5, were sent to the same hospital on Sunday, the Anatolia news agency reported...

A teenage girl has become the first known person to survive rabies without a vaccination, say doctors. A team at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin used an experimental treatment on 15-year-old Jeanna Giese.

She was admitted to hospital last month with advanced symptoms of the disease after being bitten by an infected bat at a church in September.

Doctors used a cocktail of drugs to protect the brain and nervous system from the effects of the disease. They were able to diagnose the condition quickly because Jeanna was exhibiting classic signs of the disease, such as periods of unconsciousness, double vision and slurred speech.

The disease had progressed to a point where immunisation was not an option. So a team of eight specialists used coma inducing drugs to protect the teenager's brain and a cocktail of drugs to protect her nervous system and boost her immune system.

Dr Rodney Willoughby, an expert in child infectious disease who led the team, said the aim was to protect the brain while the disease ran its course through the rest of the teenager's body. Previous research has indicated that the virus tends to kill by damaging the brain tissues.

Jeanna lapsed into a coma within an hour of starting treatment. After a week of treatment tests showed that Jeanna's immune system was creating antibodies to fight the virus.

The drug treatment was gradually eased off as the virus began to subside, allowing the teenager to regain consciousness. Subsequent laboratory tests carried out by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta showed that the teenager had cleared the virus.

Dr Willoughby said Jeanna was now physically weak but regaining her strength and voice after weeks of mechanical ventilation...

First came stomach cramps, which left Christina Shultz doubled over and weeping in pain. Then came nausea and fatigue -- so overwhelming she could not get out of bed for days.

Just when she thought things couldn't get worse, the nastiest diarrhea of her life hit -- repeatedly forcing her into the hospital.

Doctors finally discovered that the 35-year-old woman from Hilliard, Ohio, had an intestinal bug that used to be found almost exclusively among older, sicker patients in hospitals and, usually, was easily cured with a dose of antibiotics. But after months of treatment, Shultz is still incapacitated.

"It's been a nightmare," said Shultz, a mother of two young children. "I just want my life back."

Shultz is one of a growing number of young, otherwise healthy Americans who are being stricken by the bacterial infection known as Clostridium difficile -- or C. diff -- which appears to be spreading rapidly around the country and causing unusually severe, sometimes fatal illness.

That is raising alarm among health officials, who are concerned that many cases may be misdiagnosed and are puzzled as to what is causing the microbe to become so much more common and dangerous.

"It's a new phenomenon. It's just emerging," said Clifford McDonald, of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "We're very concerned. We know it's happening, but we're really not sure why it's happening or where this is going."

It may, however, be the latest example of a common, relatively benign bug that has mutated because of the overuse of antibiotics.

In addition, new evidence released last week suggests that the enormous popularity of powerful new heartburn drugs may also be playing a role. The antibiotics Flagyl (metronidazole) and vancomycin still cure many patients, but others develop stubborn infections like Shultz's that take over their lives. A small number have died, including an otherwise healthy pregnant woman who succumbed earlier this year in Pennsylvania after miscarrying twins.

The infection usually hits people who are taking antibiotics for other reasons, but a few cases have been reported among people who were taking nothing, another unexpected and troubling turn in the germ's behavior...

Scientists have cracked the genetic code of a fungus responsible for deadly infections and allergic reactions. Aspergillus fumigatus, which causes more infections than any other mould, is particularly dangerous to people with weakened immune systems.

Researchers at the Institute for Genomic Research hope their work could lead to better diagnostic tests, and treatments for fungal infections. Their international collaboration is reported in the journal Nature.

Experts believe that A. fumigatus has become an increasing threat in recent years as more people with compromised immune systems are surviving.

These include transplant patients, and people with leukaemia and Aids. The fungus also appears to trigger asthma in some people with particularly sensitive immune systems.

It is unusual because it can thrive at a wide range of temperatures, from 70C - the temperature in a compost heap - to 37C, inside the human body. By altering ambient temperatures in the lab, scientists were able to track how different genes were turned on and off as the environment warmed.

The researchers, including scientists from the UK's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, discovered that the genome of the fungus is made up of eight chromosomes bearing a total of almost 10,000 genes.

They found 700 genes that were either significantly different, or did not occur at all in a similar, but less infectious, fungus, Neosartorya fischeri. They also identified for the first time nine allergy-causing substances produced by the fungus...

Scientists have analysed in close detail the structure of a key protein that helps the malaria parasite infect human cells. They found the protein has a unique atomic structure which, in theory, new drugs could target directly.

Malaria kills about 2m people each year, most of them children under five. There are concerns about growing resistance to established drugs. The research, by scientists from India and France, is published by Nature.

Malaria is caused by a one-celled organism called Plasmodium, which is passed to humans through the bite of Anopheles mosquitoes. The parasite replicates inside red blood cells, which eventually burst. In order to enter these cells, it first has to bind to the cell through protein interactions which take place on the surfaces of red blood cells and the parasite.

The latest research focuses on one particular protein on the surface of Plasmodium which plays a particularly key role. The researchers obtained crystals of a part of this protein - called the Duffy-Binding Like (DBL) domain - which directly interacts with a protein on red blood cells.

Using a technique called X-ray crystallography they were able to create an atom-by-atom map of the protein, which are too small to be seen by microscopes.

Researcher Dr Amit Sharma said: "Until now we have not had a close-up view of the precise surface where the two proteins interact. "That surface is absolutely crucial in permitting the parasite to enter the cell. "If we can determine its features in atomic detail, we may be able to find weak points that could make good targets for drugs."..